Climate Change Wars?

Growing desertification and violence in Nigeria is forcing thousands of Muslim herdsmen to move south, leading to clashes with Christian crop farmers. Residents and activists report that hundreds have been killed. Scarcity of fertile land and violence at the hands of Boko Haram jihadists in the north of Nigeria are driving thousands of people southwards, dividing the country down ethnic and religious lines.

Thousands of people from the roaming Fulani ethnic group are reported to have fled south this year, running up against Christian crop farmers, who accuse the Muslim herdsmen of violence against villagers. Fulani herdsmen have been accused of attacking the village of Nimbo in Nigeria's Biafra southeast state in April, opening fire on residents and torching a house. Fulani leaders say they are the victims, and that they have no choice but to migrate to seek new pastures and escape the violence of terrorist group Boko Haram.

Much of the fighting is understood to stem from conflict over resources such as land and water, which have become increasingly scarce in Africa's most populous nation. Clashes are reported to have intensified over the last few years. With temperatures soaring and drought increasing, many in Africa are losing their livelihoods. They are looking for other ways to survive.

Desertification is increasingly rendering large swathes of fertile land into desert. A report published in the Journal of Ecology and the Natural Environment says that more than 60 percent of the Nigeria's land is affected. The report cites climatic variation and the result of human activities - including deforestation, extensive cultivation and overgrazing - as causes. Other studies have established a link between climate change and conflict.

Doomed Africans?

The Nairobi-based United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) assessed the negative impact of climate change on Africa and concluded that human existence on the continent was at severe risk. It sid that “No continent will be struck as severely by the impacts of climate change as Africa.” 54 countries with a combined population of over 1,200 billion inhabitants. The World Bank, basing on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports, confirmed that Africa is becoming the most exposed region in the world to the impacts of climate change. In Sub-Saharan Africa, extreme weather will cause dry areas to become drier and wet areas wetter; agriculture yields will suffer from crop failures; and diseases will spread to new altitudes, say the World Bank experts, while alerting that by 2030 it is expected that 90 million more people in Africa will be exposed to malaria, “already the biggest killer in Sub-Saharan Africa.”

By 2020, between 75 and 250 million people in Africa are projected to be exposed to increased water stress due to climate change.

1.  By 2020, in some countries, yields from rain-fed agriculture could be reduced by up to 50%.

2. Agricultural production, including access to food, in many African countries is projected to be severely compromised. This would further adversely affect food security and exacerbate malnutrition.

3. Towards the end of the 21st century, projected sea level rise will affect low-lying coastal areas with large populations.

4.  By 2080, an increase of 5 to 8 per cent of arid and semi-arid land in Africa is projected under a range of climate scenarios,

5.  The cost of adaptation could amount to at least 5 to 10% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Temperatures: By 2050, average temperatures in Africa are predicted to increase by 1.5 to 3°C, and will continue further upwards beyond this time. Warming is very likely to be larger than the global annual mean warming throughout the continent and in all seasons, with drier subtropical regions warming more than the moister tropics.

Ecosystems: It is estimated that, by the 2080s, the proportion of arid and semi-arid lands in Africa is likely to increase by 5-8 per cent. Ecosystems are critical in Africa, contributing significantly to biodiversity and human well-being. Between 25 and 40 per cent of mammal species in national parks in sub-Saharan Africa will become endangered. There is evidence that climate is modifying natural mountain ecosystems via complex interactions and feedbacks.

Rainfall: There will also be major changes in rainfall in terms of annual and seasonal trends, and extreme events of flood and drought. Annual rainfall is likely to decrease in much of Mediterranean Africa and the northern Sahara, with a greater likelihood of decreasing rainfall as the Mediterranean coast is approached.

Droughts: By 2080, an increase of 5 to 8 per cent of arid and semi-arid land in Africa is projected under a range of climate scenarios. Droughts have become more common, especially in the tropics and subtropics, since the 1970s.

Human health: already compromised by a range of factors, could be further negatively impacted by climate change and climate variability, e.g., malaria in southern Africa and the East African highlands.

Water: By 2020, a population of between 75 and 250 million and 350-600 million by 2050, are projected to be exposed to increased water stress due to climate change. Climate change and variability are likely to impose additional pressures on water availability, water accessibility and water demand in Africa. In Ethiopia, owners bring their livestock to sell for destocking purposes. El Niño impacts have made it necessary to reduce herd sizes.

Agriculture: By 2020, in some countries, yields from rain-fed agriculture could be reduced by up to 50 per cent. Agricultural production, including access to food, in many African countries is projected to be severely compromised. Projected reductions in yield in some countries could be as much as 50 per cent by 2020, and crop net revenues could fall by as much as 90 per cent by 2100, with small-scale farmers being the most affected.

Sea-level rise: Africa has close to 320 coastal cities –with more than 10,000 people– and an estimated population of 56 million people (2005 estimate) living in low elevation (10-m) coastal zones. Toward the end of the 21st century, projected sea level rise will affect low-lying coastal areas with large populations.

Energy: Access to energy is severely constrained in sub-Saharan Africa, with an estimated 51 per cent of urban populations and only about 8 per cent of rural populations having access to electricity. Extreme poverty and the lack of access to other fuels mean that 80 per cent of the overall African population relies primarily on biomass to meet its residential needs, with this fuel source supplying more than 80 per cent of the energy consumed in sub-Saharan Africa.

The Food and Agriculture Organization explains that the increasingly unpredictable and erratic nature of weather systems on the continent have placed an extra burden on food security and rural livelihoods. “Agriculture is expected to pay a significant cost of the damage caused by climate change.” The agriculture sector is also likely to experience periods of prolonged droughts and /or floods during El- Nino events. And fisheries will be particularly affected due to changes in sea temperatures that could decrease trends in productivity by 50-60 per cent.

Africa's Climate Change Challenge

‘The origin of global warming lies in capitalism. If we could end capitalism—and this is something we should do at global level—we would have a solution.” Bolivia’s president, Evo Morales

Nnimmo Bassey, a Nigerian environmental activist, director of Health of Mother Earth Foundation, and author of "To Cook a Continent: Destructive Extraction and the Climate Crisis in Africa." Bassey says the carbon trading included in the draft agreement could increase deforestation, displace farmers and contribute to the food crisis in Africa. This is what he says :

“…with regard to the Conference of Parties on climate change, I believe that there was a big derailment right from Copenhagen at COP 15. So, there is no real reason to think there’s going to be something that we can say, yes, finally, the world is on track to tackle global warming. We’re still seeing situations where nations are haggling and debating over figures, nothing to show that there is an understanding that climate change is something that has been scientifically investigated and that there must be a way to evaluate aggregate actions by different countries that would add up to a result that will tackle the problem. Right from the arrival of the Copenhagen Accord, everything is moving in terms of the direction of voluntary commitments to reduce emissions…What is causing global warming? One of the major causes is the dependence on fossil fuels. And all the conservative organizations, like the World Bank, the International Energy Agency, have all indicated that unless up two 80 percent of known fossil fuel reserves are left under the ground, we are on track for catastrophic temperature increase. There’s no talk about leaving fossil fuels. Everything is about how to offset the pollution, so every mechanism is being developed that would help polluting industry and rich countries to continue with business as usual.

…the effect of climate change is real, already being experienced. It’s not something for the future. And Africa is so central in the whole of this because Africa experiences 50 percent more in terms of temperature rise than the global average. So if the global average temperature goes up by two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, in Africa the experience will be three degrees Celsius. If it goes to six degrees, that will be nine degrees. Africa is set to be roasted. We’re going to a scenario where we may have Africa without Africans. It’s really horrible.

The floods are getting more, the droughts, the desertification. Africa may well be the only continent where the desert is still spreading. And then, with the assault on land grabs and everything, we are really being squeezed. In 2012, we had floods across the continent. In my country, Nigeria, six million people were displaced by flooding in one year. Over 300 lost their lives. We had similar flooding replicated across the continent. We’re having also the challenge of sea level rise. Where I come from, the Niger Delta, the land is naturally subsiding. So when you have a combination of sea level rise and land subsidence, you’re having a heightened impact.

We are seeing a situation also, from research, that if the situation continues the way it’s going, by 2050 we may well have more than 50 percent increase in conflicts on the continent. I mean, this is something I don’t even want to think about, considering the level of resource conflict, political conflicts and other manifestation of violence on the continent…

….REDD is Reducing Emissions for Deforestation and Forest Degradation. That’s what it’s meant to mean. That’s what it—I mean, it’s a concept that nobody will really oppose, but when you look at the practice on the ground, it’s just a carbon market mechanism, where polluting industries and rich nations, instead of stopping pollution at its source, will secure and buy up forests in Africa, in Latin America, somewhere else, and even some forests in the Global North, so as to permit them to pollute. REDD is a mechanism that permits the polluter to continue polluting….what they would do in Brazil is that the forests would be—the forest-dependent communities would now be more or less displaced from having access to the forest, forest resources and also their territories. If I take this back to Africa, right as we speak, the displacement of communities in the Sengwer—of the Sengwer people in Kenya, who have been displaced from their forests because the REDD project is about to set in there. We’ve had displacement of thousands in Uganda already. In Nigeria, my own country, the Cross River forests, part of it is being secured for REDD projects….People are being forced out with military power, military might, so as to secure carbon. Forest trees are being seen as carbon stocks, not as trees anymore. And the fearful thing is that with the discussions in REDD, this may move on to issues of not just carbon in trees, but carbon in agriculture. So farmers will be farming carbon rather than growing food for people to eat. And unfortunately also for the United Nations, a forest is—a plantation is accepted as a forest. So, REDD is set to kind of accelerate plantations across the tropical world. This would mean more displacement of communities, more displacement of farmers from farming land. And, of course, it’s going to compound the food crisis in the region….”

We need to change to survive climate change

Changes in climate such as higher temperatures and reduced water supplies, along with other factors like biodiversity loss and ecosystems degradation, affect agriculture. According to Science, a leading international research journal, by 2030 Southern Africa and South Asia will be the two regions in the world whose crop production is most affected by climate change. Climate change comes with never-before-experienced impacts. For example, crop yields and growing seasons will decrease even as changing rain patterns will worsen people’s access to water. Yet Africa’s population is projected to reach 2 billion in less than 37 years, and in 86 years three out of every four people added to the planet will be African. That is why experts have warned that if the current situation persists, Africa will be fulfilling only 13% of its food needs by 2050. This situation will further threaten about 65% of African workers who depend on agriculture for their livelihoods including children and the elderly, who are particularly vulnerable to food insecurity. Hunger already affects about 240 million Africans daily. The situation will be dire for children who need proper nourishment to succeed in their education. The Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) has estimated that African countries could lose between 2% and 16% of gross domestic product due to stunting of children as a result of malnutrition.

Food insecurity will likely lead to social unrest, as has been the case in the past. For example, between 2007 and 2008, riots took place in many countries when prices of staples peaked. In 2010, hundreds of protesters took to the streets in Mozambique after wheat prices went up by 25% due to a global wheat shortage. The increase in bread prices led to arson, violence, looting and even deaths.

 The Africa Adaptation Gap Report by the UN Environment Programme, the UN organ responsible for promoting sustainable use of the environment, confirmed the World Bank’s recent findings that with warming of about 2 degrees C, all crop yields across sub-Saharan Africa will decrease by 10% by the 2050s; greater warming (which is more likely) will cause crop yields to decrease by up to 15% or 20%. Further bad news for African agriculture is that by the middle of this century, wheat production could decrease by 17%, maize production by 5%, sorghum production by 15% and millet production by 10%. Additionally, if climate warming exceeds 3 degrees C, all present-day cropping areas for maize, millet and sorghum will be unsuitable for those crops. In the coming years, water for agriculture will be stretched to a painful extent. In Africa, 95% of agriculture relies on rainfall for water, according to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The World Bank notes it is very likely that by 2020 the total availability of blue and green water (from rains and rivers) in all of Africa could decline by more than 10%.

 Africa needs an approach that works with nature, not against it. The most pessimistic forecast about the impact of climate change suggests that Africa may lose 47% of agricultural revenue by 2100, while the most optimistic predicts a loss of only 6%. The latter scenario depends on the assumption that climate change adaptation practices and infrastructure are already in place. But the difference between 6% and 47% is huge.

There is a continuing argument as to whether the industrial agricultural revolution will solve some or all of Africa’s climate change problems. However, experts maintain that industrial agriculture currently accounts for one third of all greenhouse gas emissions—the very element most responsible for climate change. Additionally, they believe that the resources and infrastructure required to operate an industrial agricultural system in Africa are impractical for smallholder farmers. New machines also mean fewer hands, which may increase joblessness while reducing wages, affecting many who depend on agriculture. Because current practices cannot meet future demands, Africa must apply new and better approaches.

One of the options being advocated is the ecosystem-based adaptation,, which is to mitigate climate change impact through the use natural systems such as drought-resistant varieties, more efficient methods of water storage and more diversity in crop rotation, says UNEP. In Zambia, 61% of farmers who applied an ecosystem-based adaptation, such as natural resource conservation or sustainable organic agricultural practices, reported surplus yields. Some yields even increased by up to 60%, while sales of surplus crops grew from 25.9% to 69%. In Burkina Faso, farmers are using indigenous methods to rehabilitate land. By digging small pits (locally referred to as zaï) on barren plots and filling them with organic matter, some Burkinabe farmers are able to add nutrients to the soil while enhancing groundwater storage to improve crop productivity. These farmers have reclaimed 200,000 to 300,000 hectares of degraded lands and have produced an estimated 80,000 to 120,000 additional tonnes of cereal.

Other options include protecting watersheds and reinforcing their capacity to hold water and carry it to those who need it most; using integrated pest management, which is a natural and cost-effective way of protecting crops; using agroforestry, intercropping and crop rotation, which bring nutrient diversity to fields and ensure continued and improved production yields in a natural way; maintaining forests and using forest foods; using natural fertilizers like manure; and using natural pollinators like bees, which, according to a recent study, could increase fruit yields by 5%.

 Building on such good practices, and properly managing the unavoidable effects of climate change, will unlock Africa’s potential to feed itself. The future need not be a future of want.

http://www.spyghana.com/despite-climate-change-africa-can-feed-africa/

Climate Changes for Africa

"We will witness instability in rainfall, disease spreading, sea level rise and floods. One other effect of climate change is to send Africans further and further to seek water. This brings them into conflicts with other Africans. We will face wars on African soil that are not created in Africa."

These words by Tosi Mpanu-Mpanu, the former chairperson of the Africa Group at the ongoing United Nations climate change negotiations provides a striking reminder and warning that climate change is more than just about floods or droughts but rather a serious phenomenon that has the capacity to destabilize Africa.

For example, in the Darfur region, climate change has escalated the crisis with competition for scarce water in refugee camps, and scarce land between farmers and herders sparking serious conflicts in the arid region. According to the United Nations, more than 1.4 million people have been displaced, while thousands others have died since the crisis erupted in the Darfur region in 2003.

In the North Rift and North Eastern regions of Kenya, climate change and human pressures on natural resources have induced violent pastoral conflicts that have resulted in some locals migrating to new lands.

The complexities of climate change also saw Kenya and Uganda at one point coming to an agreement to demarcate Lake Victoria using bright beacons so that fishers from both countries do not cross into another border. This was after longstanding clashes between fishers "encroaching into another country's waters" in search of better and bigger fish.
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Although tension has been fairly well managed, increased migration, droughts and livestock disease may spark grazing wars, as communities fight over existing and new lands.  Over the next 50 years, the continent is expected to suffer from more frequent and intense droughts and floods, more unpredictable growing seasons, and higher average temperatures. This global challenge was not caused by Africa, but by industrialized countries, yet the continent is the hardest hit due to limited financial resources to adapt to such changes. There is also the need for the global community to honour its pledges to provide climate change finance in the form of grants and not loans. Increased aid was promised in 2009 to help developing countries to cope with climate change, to reach $100 billion a year after 2020, from $10 billion annually 2010-12. However, few have met the pledges,

Africa and other countries of the South want the highly polluting nations of the north to cut emissions to at least 40 percent below the 1990 levels by 2020 - demands that are also being challenged by the highly polluting countries. UN climate talks held in Warsaw, Poland in late 2013, industrialized countries rejected calls to set targets for 2013-19, meaning that progress towards a proposed new global climate treaty will be stalled.

Africa has made a commitment to speak with one voice at the ongoing climate change negotiations, because disunity could leave the continent exposed to manipulation which would leave the continent prone to climate change induced effects of migration and conflicts, which have the capacity to destabilize.

Africa has an abundance of renewable energy sources which, if fully harnessed, could boost power generation in the region. According to the African Development Bank (AfDB), the continent has the potential to become a "gold mine" for renewable energy due to the abundant solar and wind resources that are now hugely sought after by international investors in their quest for clean energy. Africa is slowly turning to renewable energy sources such as solar, hydro and wind - which are less polluting to the environment compared to other forms such as coal.

African famers are making changes to their crop and livestock varieties that are more variable and tolerate to extreme conditions. For example, farmers in Zimbabwe are using new varieties of locally developed maize that matures faster than traditional varieties, as they require less water.  Local communities in the Zambezi River Basin have developed systems of gathering, predicting, interpreting, and decision-making in relation to weather. The communities are timing the fruiting of certain local trees, the water level in streams and ponds, the nesting behaviour of small quail-like birds, and insect behaviour to forecast any changes in the environment such droughts or floods.

Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Dr. Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, who told African leaders at the recent Summit  "By the intelligent application of centuries-old indigenous knowledge, acquired and conserved by African women who have tended crops in all seasons, within the first few years bumper harvests were being reported. Agronomists consulted women about the qualities of various grains - which ones survived low rainfalls and which thrived in wet weather; what pests threatened crops and how could they be combated without undermining delicate ecological systems."

Another key intervention for Africa is improving access to accurate information about climate change and climate change induced conflict. The African media has been identified as an important player in the global effort to combat the impacts of climate change, particularly in early warning, management and resolution. Empowering journalist on reporting climate change has resulted in more people knowing the various measures that are available to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

It is a start and demonstrates the possible potential for the future - but we all understand that the hurdle is always capitalism and the need to make profits. For real change for the better we need socialism

Nigeria's 'Eko Atlantic' Introduces Climate Apartheid

It’s a sight to behold. Just off Lagos, Nigeria’s coast, an artificial island is emerging from the sea. A foundation, built of sand dredged from the ocean floor, stretches over ten kilometres. Promotional videos depict what is to come: a city of soaring buildings, housing for 250,000 people, and a central boulevard to match Paris’ Champs-Élysées and New York’s Fifth Avenue. Privately constructed, it will also be privately administered and supplied with electricity, water, mass transit, sewage and security. It is the “future Hong Kong of Africa,” anticipates Nigeria’s World Bank director.

Welcome to Eko Atlantic, a city whose “whole purpose”, its developers say, is to “arrest the ocean’s encroachment.” Like many low-lying coastal African countries, Nigeria has been hit hard by a rising sea-level, which has regularly washed away thousands of peoples’ homes. To defend against the coastal erosion and flooding, the city is being surrounded by the “Great Wall of Lagos”, a sea defence barrier made of 100,000 five-ton concrete blocks. Eko Atlantic will be a “sustainable city, clean and energy efficient with minimal carbon emissions,” offer jobs, prosperity and new land for Nigerians, and serve as a bulwark in the fight against the impacts of climate change.

At least that’s the official story. Other facts suggest this gleaming city will be a menacing allure to most. In congested Lagos, Africa’s largest city, there is little employment and millions work and scavenge in a vast, desperate informal economy. Sixty percent of Nigeria’s population – almost 100 of 170 million people – live on less than a dollar a day. Preventable diseases are widespread; electricity and clean water hard to come by. A few kilometres down the Lagos shoreline, Nigerians eke out an existence in the aquatic slum of Makoko, built precariously on stilts over the ocean. Casting them as crime-ridden, the government regularly dismantles such slums, bulldozing homes and evicting thousands. These are hardly the people who will scoop up square footage in Eko Atlantic’s pricy new high-rises.

Those behind the project – a pair of politically connected Lebanese brothers who run a financial empire called the Chagoury Group, and a slew of African and international banks – give a picture of who will be catered to. Gilbert Chaougry was a close advisor to the notorious Nigerian dictatorship of the mid 1990s, helping the ultra-corrupt general Sani Abacha as he looted billions from public coffers. Abacha killed hundreds of demonstrators and executed environmentalist Ken Saro-Wiwa, who rose to fame protesting the despoiling of the country by Shell and other multinational oil corporations. Thus it’s fitting for whom the first 15-story office tower in Eko Atlantic is being built: a British oil and gas trading company. The city proposing to head off environmental devastation will be populated by those most responsible for it in the first place.

The real inspiration for Eko Atlantic comes not from these men but the dreamworlds of rampant capitalism, stoked by a successful, thirty year global campaign to claw back gains in social security and unchain corporations from regulation – what we now know as neoliberalism. In Nigeria, oil wealth plundered by a military elite spawned extreme inequalities and upended the economy. Under the IMF’s neoliberal dictates, the situation worsened: education and healthcare were gutted, industries privatized, and farmers ruined by western products dumped on their markets. The World Bank celebrated Nigeria; extreme poverty doubled. The most notorious application of the power of the Nigerian state for the interest of the rich came in 1990: an entire district of Lagos – 300,000 homes – was razed to clear the way for high-end real-estate development.

As elites in Nigeria and elsewhere have embraced such inequality as the very engine of growth, they have re-established some of the most severe forms of colonial segregation and gated leisure. Today, boutiques cannot open fast enough to serve the Nigerian millionaires buying luxury cars and yachts they’ll be able to dock in Eko Atlantic’s down-town marina. Meanwhile, thousands of people who live in communities along the coast expect the new city will bring displacement, not prosperity, says environmental activist Nnimmo Bassey. To get their way, the developers, backed by industry and politicians, have trampled over the country’s environmental assessment process. “Building Eko Atlantic is contrary to anything one would want to do if one took seriously climate change and resource depletion,” he says.

The wealthy and powerful may in fact take climate change seriously: not as a demand to modify their behaviour or question the fossil-fuel driven global economy that has made it possible, but as the biggest opportunity yet to realize their dreams of unfettered accumulation and consumption. The disaster capitalists behind Eko Atlantic have seized on climate change to push through pro-corporate plans to build a city of their dreams, an architectural insult to the daily circumstances of ordinary Nigerians. The criminalized poor abandoned outside their walls may once have served as sufficient justification for their flight and fortification – but now they have the very real threat of climate change as well.

Eko Atlantic is where you can begin to see a possible future – a vision of privatized green enclaves for the ultra rich ringed by slums lacking water or electricity, in which a surplus population scramble for depleting resources and shelter to fend off the coming floods and storms. Protected by guards, guns, and an insurmountable gully – real estate prices – the rich will shield themselves from the rising tides of poverty and a sea that is literally rising. A world in which the rich and powerful exploit the global ecological crisis to widen and entrench already extreme inequalities and seal themselves off from its impacts – this is climate apartheid.

Prepare for the elite, like never before, to use climate change to transform neighbourhoods, cities, even entire nations into heavily fortified islands. Already, around the world, from Afghanistan to Arizona, China to Cairo, and in mushrooming mega-cities much like Lagos, those able are moving to areas where they can live better and often more greenly – with better transport and renewable technologies, green buildings and ecological services. In Sao Paulo, Brazil, the super-rich – ferried above the congested city by a fleet of hundreds of helicopters – have disembedded themselves from urban life, attempting to escape from a common fate.
In places like Eko Atlantic the escape, a moral and social secession of the rich from those in their country, will be complete. This essentially utopian drive – to consume rapaciously and endlessly and to reject any semblance of collective impulse and concern – is simply incompatible with human survival. But at the moment when we must confront an economy and ideology pushing the planet’s life-support systems to breaking point, this is what the neoliberal imagination offers us: a grotesque monument to the ultra-rich flight from responsibility.

from here

East Africa's Food Security Under Threat From Climate Change

The report, East African Agriculture and Climate Change, published by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), looks at threats to food supplies in 11 countries in East and Central Africa – Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Rwanda, Sudan, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda.
Agriculture accounts for more than 40 percent of gross domestic product across the region. The report says soil deficiencies in many parts mean agricultural productivity is falling.
Ecosystems are depleted, infrastructure is poor and there’s a lack of reliable information and policy coordination. Meanwhile weather systems are becoming more erratic and violent.
“Climate change will have far-reaching consequences for the poor and marginalized groups, among which the majority depend on agriculture for their livelihoods and have a lower capacity to adapt…this situation is likely to become more desperate and to threaten the very survival of the most vulnerable farmers as global warming continues,” says the study.

Crop production across the region depends overwhelmingly on rainfall. Many areas are likely to see less rainfall in future and an increased incidence of droughts. In 2011 there were prolonged droughts in Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania.
Rising temperatures in many areas are likely to result in reduced crop yields: harvests of wheat, soybean, sorghum and irrigated rice could decline by between 5 percent and 20 percent, with irrigated rice production being the hardest hit. However, output of rain-fed maize and rain-fed rice might increase slightly, due to increased rainfall in some areas.
Endemic poverty affects more than 50 percent of the region’s 360 million people. Overall – unless adaptation measures, including the introduction of new crop varieties, better land management and the advancing of planting dates to cope better with changes in climate are adopted – the outlook for the region is bleak, warns the report.
“Recent trends and the current performance of agriculture expose a region that is progressively less able to meet the needs of its burgeoning population.”

The countries of East Africa have among the highest population increases in the world: between 1988 and 2008 the region’s population – excluding that of the DRC – increased by “a staggering” 74 percent. By 2050, that population could double. While there’s growing urbanization across the region and more industrial development, agriculture will continue to dominate the countries’ economies.

The report says there’s a role for insurance schemes which would enable farmers to cope better with changes in climate. But persuading those working on the land – mainly smallholders – to invest in such schemes is hard, with no spare cash available to spend on even small premiums.

[The study is a collaboration between IFPRI, the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), the Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa (ASARECA) and regional scientists. Previous studies have looked at the impact of climate change on agriculture in West Africa and southern Africa.] 

Taken from here

Climate Change Refugees

20-year-old Fizer Boa  migrated south to Ghana’s capital, Accra, to work in the local Abobloshie market as a porter or “Kayayei”, a trade often taken up by children and adults from the Northern Region who migrate to southern Ghana in search of a living.
“I agreed with my mother when she advised me to go join my friend who was working as a Kayayei in Accra. I did not object to the idea because … we hardly had three square meals a day,” she told IPS. Reduced rainfall in the Bunkpurugu-Yunyoo district in Ghana’s Northern Region, where Boa comes from, has resulted in low yields for the past two years, leaving her family barely able to survive. Soon after she came here, her two sisters dropped out of school and left their home to follow her and also work as Kayayeis. “My other siblings dropped out of school to join me in Accra because my mother could no longer pay for additional school levies, such as Parent Teachers Association fees, and school materials,” Boa said. Schooling is usually free in this West African nation, though each school charges its own additional costs and administration fees. Combined, the sisters earn up to 30 dollars on a good day.

According to Dr. Wilson Dogbe, a research scientist at the Savannah Agriculture Research Institute of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, one of the major causes of this migration is the changing environment in the north. "It is evident ... that land scarcity and soil infertility are one of the main elements pushing people off the land to seek a safe-haven in the south.” The Northern Region is a predominantly rural-based community, and farmers there have become vulnerable to the impact of climate change. “The problem is that the Northern Region currently is experiencing low rainfall, soil infertility, and increased temperatures as high as 47 degrees Celsius.”

Some of these climate refugees, who are mostly young girls between the ages of 18 and 30 sent by their families to earn an income, fetch water for people, work in chop-bars (local restaurants), and as hawkers and shop attendants. But their existence is a precarious one. Mohammed Awal, NORSAAC’s director, told IPS that the young girls were the most vulnerable of these climate refugees as they had no place to live and mostly slept in open-air truck stops at the mercy of the weather and other threats.

The director of the Northern Sector Action on Awareness Centre (NORSAAC), an NGO,  Mohammed Awal, A lot of these migrants, especially girls, return home to their families with sexually transmitted diseases,” he said, adding that many of the young women who fell pregnant were unable to trace the fathers, or experienced problems with illegal abortions. Boa said she sometimes faced “life-threating situations like sexual harassment from men” and said she too was forced to sleep in open-air truck stops.

Dogbe said the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA), established in 2010 by the government to alleviate poverty in Ghana’s north and address the north-south youth migration, had not done much to reduce migration. “It was supposed to provide opportunities for poor peasants, especially women, to own assets … sustain their food crop production and protect the fragile eco-system of the Northern Savannah Ecological Zone. But much has not been done,” he said. He said that 80 percent of the roads in Northern Region remained impassable and farmers still did not have the necessary machines like tractors and harvesters to make their jobs easier.

 Boa and her sisters will keep trying to find ways to earn a living far from home. “Hopefully, we will work hard to save money and send some to our parents,” she said. But she and her sisters dream of having a better life and being more than just porters. They hope to be able to enroll in vocational training “such as fashion design, hair dressing to be able to earn a decent as well as sustainable income.”

Climate Change has Arrived

Too many people believe that climate change is something that will affect humans in the distant future, if at all. But its effects are now.

Droughts, which are also becoming more frequent due to global warming, dry up water supplies, especially in rural areas of the continent, forcing poor families to drink dirty, sediment-and-parasite-laden water and neglect their personal hygiene. This leads to increased occurrence of maladies like lice infestation, scabies and hookworm. Natural disasters such as hurricanes and floods can create breeding grounds for infectious diseases such as cholera. Global climate change also has substantial negative impacts on people’s mental health and well-being. As people cope with the trauma of extreme weather effects, such as losing their homes or experiencing violence and ill health, they also suffer from forms of mental illness such as depression and anxiety.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO) 2004 report on the global and regional burden of disease, at least 150,000 people die each year due to the direct effects of climate change. Of those, three percent die of diarrhea, another three percent of malaria, and just under four percent of dengue fever. Climate change is expected to trigger increased movements of people within and across borders. The International Organization for Migration estimates (that by 2050, between 25 million and 1 billion environmental migrants will move within their countries or across borders). Rural to urban migration increases migrants’ vulnerability to respiratory diseases and HIV infection. Migration is also one of the key causes of tuberculosis (TB) in countries which in the past rarely saw the disease, which often creates a steep financial burden for these countries.

Additionally, the prevalence of new and re-emerging mosquito-borne diseases is increasing worldwide due to climate change. Rising temperatures in the highlands allow mosquitoes and ticks to survive longer, leading to an increase in mosquito-borne diseases and the emergence of new diseases. Malaria, dengue fever and Leishmaniasis, a disfiguring disease caused by sand flies, are good examples. New kinds of Leishmaniasis have been detected across Africa. This type of Leishmaniasis is resistant to all forms of available treatment.This stigmatizing skin disease, which afflicts the infected person with sores and lesions that can cause permanent disfigurement, is becoming one of the main reasons for school drop-outs in Northern Ethiopia.

Climate change also impacts agriculture and livestock, increasing the prevalence of malnutrition and negatively affecting the health of children and pregnant women. It is estimated that 30 percent children under the age of five in Ethiopia are malnourished. The International Food Policy Research Institute estimates that by 2050 an additional 25 million people will be malnourished as a result of climate change. This is particularly dangerous because malnutrition, which has negative health risks of its own (macronutrient and micronutrient deficiency is a leading cause of childhood death in Africa), also increases people’s susceptibility to infectious diseases such as intestinal parasites, tuberculosis and HIV.

Taken from here 

Kenya’s KTN outshines American Media in Climate Change Coverage

Kenya’s KTN television news reports on the Warsaw Climate Conference and on a new report by the World Meteorological Organization showing that 2013 is one of the 10 hottest years since 1850.

What struck me is how professional and straightforward the KTN report is. It accurately represents the WMO report and shows its representatives presenting at the UN. It relates the story to drought in Somalia, which affects Kenyan viewers. It doesn’t kowtow to “on the other hand” “journalism” and declines to interview a paid-for climate-change denier.

You wouldn’t get this fine report on an NBC, CBS, ABC or (certainly not) Fox, billion-dollar news empires in the technologically most advanced country in the world. Some 80% of Kenyans don’t have electricity. But if they could see their television news, they’d have a right to be proud of it. Since they aren’t generating the carbon dioxide pollution, and are certainly going to suffer from climate change, Kenyan journalists are interested in telling the truth.

Mirrored from Juan Cole here

Somalia's drought was man-made

 Global warming may have contributed to low rain levels in Somalia in 2011 where tens of thousands died in a famine, research by British climate scientists suggests.  Between 50,000 and 100,000 people died from the famine.

 Peter Stott of Britain's Met Office said that the evidence is "very strong" that the planet is warming due to an increase in greenhouse gases. He noted that the study indicates that both natural causes -- La Nina and the short rains -- and man-made causes contributed to Somalia's drought. Between 24 percent and 99 percent of the cause of the failure of the 2011 rains can be attributed to the presence of man-made greenhouse gases, Stott said.

Global warming is caused by the burning of fossil fuels -- coal, oil and natural gas -- which sends heat-trapping gases, such as carbon dioxide, into the air, changing the climate, of which the contribution of Somalian people is negligible yet they bore the brunt of the consequences.

Climate Change in Malawi

Malawi has in the past six years enjoyed maize surpluses yet food production has been on the decline, a climate change study has indicated.

Rainfall distribution in Malawi has become more unpredictable to the extent that it has reduced crop production, Malawi’s Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development hydrologist Henrie Manford Njoloma has disclosed in his research study of over 60 years of rainfall data in the sub Saharan country. “Rainfall distribution is no longer uniform and predictable as it used to be in the past,” he says noting that maize, the country’s staple diet has been drastically affected by the erratic rainfall patterns.

Maize is a highly politicized crop in Malawi because of its nature as a main food crop. As such, government interferes either directly or indirectly in its production and trade at all levels. The private sector also responds sharply whenever there is a maize shortage. Malawi faces food insecurity problems despite having a lot of water resources in sub-Saharan region. It has Lake Malawi, Africa’s third largest lake, which takes up 20% of its land mass and is mostly in the central and northern parts of the country. There are smaller lakes of Chilwa and Malombe in the south and many rivers across the country.

Njoloma observes that despite maize output increasing by 1.8% per annum between 1961 and 1991, the yields have been lower than the 5-year annual average of 2,192,634 metric tons in the first three years, albeit increasing to above the 5-year average in the later years. The hydrologist says that the rainfall pattern in these rainfall seasons were some of the worst, punctuated with many longer than normal dry spells. He also notes that the production of maize per unit area also had increased. Government documents suggest that about 75% of the estimated increase in total production resulted from the expansion in maize area but does not indicate the role of favorable climatic conditions. “Overall, yields appear to have increased at a small but significant rate of 0.4% per year,” says Njoloma adding, “The per capita maize production, however, declined over the past half century as production lagged behind an exponential annual population growth rate of over 3.0%”.

He observes that various water schemes gather dust on the drawing board while less than 1% of the country is irrigated. According to a 2004-2005 Integrated Household Survey (IHS) report, modern methods of irrigation are almost nonexistent in most households in Malawi. “There has been low priority in irrigation agricultural production despite the increased publicity the sector has been given over the past 15 years,” notes the hydrologist urging government to initiate efforts that would ensure that rainfalls into the country’s catchments are looked at to recharge water resources such as wetlands, rivers, dams and lakes. “With the right infrastructure and proper institutions in place, erratic rainfall trends could easily be mitigated and maize grain shortages would be avoided,”

http://www.newstimeafrica.com/archives/24855

climate change

Africa's oldest and deepest lake has experienced unprecedented warming during the past century, a trend that scientists say threatens fish stocks that feed millions of people. The surface of finger-shaped Lake Tanganyika, which stretches 420 miles along the Great Rift Valley, is 26 degrees Celsius -- its warmest temperature in 1,500 years. The lake surface experienced its biggest temperature jump -- 2 degrees Celsius -- during the past 90 years, a period corresponding with increased combustion of fossil fuels and emissions of heat-trapping gases.

"A lot of that increase has happened in the last 50 years, so we do believe man-made global warming is responsible," lead scientist Jessica Tierney explained.

A 2006 report from the U.N. Environment Programme estimated that roughly 200,000 tons of fish were harvested annually from the lake, which borders the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, Tanzania and Zambia. The report estimated that the lake's drainage basin is home to about 10 million people; most of the rural population fishes or farms for a living. The lake supports Africa's largest freshwater fishery.

climate change and war

Climate has been a major driver of armed conflict in Africa, research shows - and future warming is likely to increase the number of deaths from war.US researchers found that across the continent, conflict was about 50% more likely in unusually warm . Writing in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences they suggest strife arises when the food supply is scarce in warm conditions. Warm years increased the likelihood of conflict by about 50% - and food seems to be the reason why.

"Studies show that crop yields in the region are really sensitive to small shifts in temperature, even of half a degree Celsius or so," research leader Marshall Burke, from the University of California at Berkeley, told BBC "If the sub-Saharan climate continues to warm and little is done to help its countries better adapt to high temperatures, the human costs are likely to be staggering."

If temperatures rise across the continent as computer models project, future conflicts are likely to become more common.And it will take a lot more than more money and the added investment offered up as solutions to avoid those future wars .

Climate Change and Crops

Climate change could cause severe crop losses in South Asia and southern Africa over the next twenty years, a study in the journal Science says.

The findings suggest southern Africa could lose more than 30% of its main crop, maize, by 2030. In South Asia losses of many regional staples, such as rice, millet and maize could top 10%.

"For poor farmers on the margin of survival, these losses could really be crushing," said co-author Marshall Burke, also of Stanford University.

The study used computer models to assess the impact of climate change on farming in 12 world regions where the bulk of the world's malnourished people live. This included much of Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, the Caribbean and Central and South America. All the models agree that there will be adverse effects on maize in southern Africa and rice in South-East Asia, but the picture is less certain in other areas such as parts of West Africa where it is unclear how global warming will impact the local climate.

Africa in the Oven

Climate disasters are heavily concentrated in poor countries. Some 262 million people were affected by climate disasters annually from 2000 to 2004, over 98 percent of them in the developing world - UNDP Human Development Report .

In rich developed countries one in 1,500 people was affected by climate disaster. The comparable figure for developing countries was one in 19 - Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change .

Oxfam says global warming is altering the human food supply and threatening some of the world's poorest people with hunger. At the United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Bali, the group argued developed countries should pay to address the problem, and costs could top $50 billion a year.

The United Nations predicts that in some African countries, crop yields could fall by half. Gains made in human development in Africa may be reversed if climate change is not checked.

“Ultimately, climate change is a threat to humanity as a whole. But it is the poor, a constituency with no responsibility for the current ecological debt, who face the immediate and most severe human costs,” says UNDP administrator Kemal Dervis

Among the threats to human development, that African countries may have to deal with, is breakdown of agricultural systems due to increased exposure to drought, rising temperatures and more erratic rainfall, leaving up to 600 million more people facing malnutrition.

Global warming also poses health risks, with an additional population of up to 400 million people threatened with malaria, which is one of the leading killers in the tropics.

Semi-arid areas of sub-Saharan Africa, with some of the highest concentrations of poverty in the world, face the danger of potential productivity losses of 26 per cent by 2060.

UNDP warns that if the status quo prevails, an additional 1.8 billion people in Africa and other areas will face water stress by 2080, a trend that is worrying considering the fact that water scarcity has been one of the limiting factors to agricultural production.

Yet industrialised countries have only allocated about US$163 million towards helping the Least Developed Countries adapt to global warming - less than what Canadians spent on hair conditioner last year - says a new report by Oxfam. And just only less than $10 million of this has been dispensed so far .

However , lets not be under the impression that cash-aid will be a panacea for the problems that will face Africa in the future from climate chnge . Nor other such financial solutions proposed such as carbon taxes; a passenger levy on international air travel; revenue from carbon-allowance auctions; transaction levies in national and global carbon-trading schemes; and redirecting distorting fossil-fuel subsidies.

As December's Soicialist Standard states it is the capitalist economic system itself which is responsible for ecological problems. In fact, not only have workers no influence over the decisions taken by enterprises but those who do have the power to decide - the capitalists - are themselves subject to the laws of profit and competition. Capitalism can only function in the interest of the capitalists, no palliative, no rearrangement, no measure, no reform can subordinate capitalist private property to the general interest.

We can only “cure the planet” by establishing a society without private productive property or profit where humans will be freed from the uncontrollable economic laws of the pursuit of profit and the accumulation of capital.

A world in which the present system of rival States will be replaced by a world community without frontiers, the rationing of money and the wages system replaced by free access to the wealth produced, competition replaced by cooperation, and class antagonism replaced by social equality.

Climate change

It is not good news for the future of the continent of Africa from climate change according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) .

Greenhouse gases will later this century put up to 1.8 billion more people in Africa at risk of water stress. Even a modest temperature rise could lead to falls in water flows in some river systems equal in volume to one large dam being lost annually. Arid and semi-arid lands are likely to increase by up to eight per cent . Sea level rise, especially on the east African coast, will increase flooding .

The report also predicts that wheat may disappear from Africa by the 2080s; that the soya bean harvest in Egypt could drop by close to 30 per cent by 2050 under a worst case scenario and maize yields fall significantly in southern Africa.

"It [Africa] is the Continent with the least responsibility for the climate change and yet is perversely the Continent with the most at risk if greenhouse gases are not cut”. - Achim Steiner, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme

"Unfortunately for us, the West pollutes and Africa suffers," Dorothy Kaggwa, a spokesperson from Environmental Alert